Born out of the hallways of Parsons School of Design, the young label Private Policy is the brainchild of talented designers Haoran Li and Siying Qu. With a community-minded viewpoint, they employ the talents of close friends and take inspiration from downtown New York City, where they reside. In this spirit, they collaborated with Sung Jin Lee, an illustrator, tattoo artist, and long time friend, on a hand-drawn print for the brand’s Spring/Summer 2017 collection, seen in the gallery above.
After reading about Burmese slave trade in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, the duo was deeply moved by the stories of fishermen forced to live in fear and work on the ocean relentlessly, completely trapped and unable to escape, many for years at a time. From this story, Lee’s series of emotionally charged drawings were printed across many items within the collection.